


From a Beautiful Beginning to a Muted Kind of End

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, What Comes Next, post-4x15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6104950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-4x15, right after Felicity walks out. What comes next?</p>
<p>“Ever since the engagement party, when Curtis put the possibility in their minds, he’s allowed himself to hope, imagining Felicity walking towards him in the lair, in their bedroom, down the aisle in a white dress. And then, like so many of his dreams, it crumbled in front of his eyes.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	From a Beautiful Beginning to a Muted Kind of End

_post-4x15, right after Felicity walks out. What comes next?  
_

_Title from “I[t’s Never Too Late to Be Alone](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DR7J0EyA1XMU&t=ZTM4ZDEyZDQ0ZDQwYzk1NjA2MDUxODU3MGFkZGIwMmYwODUxMzM0ZCx3QlgzWWpDdQ%3D%3D)” by Del Amitri._

**From a Beautiful Beginning to a Muted Kind of End**

It might be an hour before Oliver snaps out of the daze she leaves him in, before his retinas scrub away the image of her standing in front of him and then, walking away. Rubbed raw from leaving his message to William, when the fresh wave of grief rends the flesh from his bones, he sits frozen in shock as she shuts the door behind her, so still he nearly forgets to breathe.

He’s hoped for it. If he’s honest, he even tried praying once or twice. Ever since the engagement party, when Curtis put the possibility in their minds, he’s allowed himself to imagine Felicity walking towards him in the lair, in their bedroom, down the aisle in a white dress. And then, like so many of his dreams, it crumbled in front of his eyes, inverted in on itself and became something dark and painful.

She stood, and they had both murmured their disbelief under their breaths, broadcast their heartbroken wonder into each other’s eyes. And then, she left.

He takes the elevator down to the lobby when he can make his own feet move again, and the ride feels interminable. He’s not sure where he’s going, but staying in the loft, _their home,_ with the ghosts of heartbreak and tragedy, without her, feels next to impossible. He might deserve this, but he doesn’t have to give up so easily.

Luckily, or maybe not, he doesn’t have to go far. When the elevator doors open, Felicity’s right there in front of him.

“Turns out, walking’s pretty tiring when you haven’t done it in a month or two.” Her voice is barely loud enough to reach him from across the lobby, where she’s seated on the bench by the door. Her hands rest gingerly on her thighs and her shoulders are slumped like she’s trying to curl inward on herself.

He tries to find the calm, optimistic voice he used just days about in the therapy lab. “Paul said it might take a while.”

“I need the chair.” She still won’t meet his eyes and it almost hurts more than watching her slip off his mother’s ring.

“Just until your muscles get used to things working properly again,” he assures, crossing the room to crouch in front of her, trying to sound certain of something in this world.

“No, I mean I need the chair _now_ ,” she clarifies, eyes clouding with frustrated tears when she finally looks up at him. Oh. “I need it so I can leave. I _can’t_ …”

“Hey, hey…” He cups her cheek and she trails off, leaning into him before either of them realize what’s happening. She pulls away first, and he clears his throat. “Alright. Let’s get it.”

Oliver offers the help before realizing what it entails, but thankfully the details come to him before he reaches out unconsciously again. Perhaps it would be easier if he went back up and fetched the chair himself, but immediately, his guilty, masochistic mind begins crafting another solution. “Can I…?”

“Yeah,” she stammers. Oliver stops himself from breathing a sigh of relief that’s probably misguided. “Yeah, ok.”

He bends over to lift her in his arms, and it would be easier to ignore the shudder that he hears spill from her lips if he couldn’t also feel it against his chest. She threads her arms around his neck like they’ve done a hundred times before, and his heart thuds apologies to her in Morse code as it knocks against his ribcage. When she buries her head in his t-shirt, it’s only a moment before he feels the tears begin to seep through.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, almost unconsciously, as the elevator doors close behind them. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not fair.” The words are muffled, but sound closer to a sob than an accusation. And she’s right. She deserves so much better.

This time, the elevator feels like a sensory deprivation chamber, the only thing Oliver’s aware of is Felicity. He tries his best to commit every detail to memory, the smell of her hair, the press of her lips against his chest, how she feels in his arms, he memorizes everything even as he lies to himself, promising that it won’t be the last time he holds her in his arms.

This time, the ride is over all too quickly.

He carries her over the threshold into the apartment and almost trips over his heart when it sinks at the metaphor. When Felicity backs away from him the moment he rests her back in the chair, he knows she’s right. Oliver Queen can’t be someone’s fiance any more then he can be someone’s father. He’s tried so hard to fight it in the past few months, but all he’s succeeded in doing is bringing more chaos and destruction down on those he loves and the city he swore to protect.

And now she’s leaving, again, wearing the same coat she did when she stepped back, away from him, in the alleyway outside Verdant and told him that she didn’t want to be a woman he loved. He wants to tell her now that she’s the only woman he’s ever loved to this kind of extreme, but knows they both understand that on some level, because of how she’s suffered.

The coat is deep pink, the same color her lips were painted in the hospital on the night Sara was born, the first time he kissed her, the first time he choked his way around a real “I love you,” the first time she walked out on him.

“Don’t go.” He speaks up, finally, and watches Felicity’s gaze drop to the ground and her hands nervously twist at her wheels, a new tic she hopefully won’t get a chance to make a habit.

“Oliver, I can’t….”

“I know,” he fills in when she doesn’t bother finishing, voice low and sluggish with remorse. “But you should stay here. Everything’s already retrofitted, your stuff is organized and accessible, everything…everything you need is here.”

“What about you?” He knows she’s asking where he’ll go, but still, his heart takes a stutter step.

Truthfully, he hadn’t really thought about it, doesn’t really care. He spent months sleeping by himself in the dank and depressing lair, and that didn’t come close to feeling this lonesome.  “There’s a newly-empty campaign office that comes to mind.” Yet another of his spectacular failures, though it’s been a bad enough week that it only takes third place.

She nods in response, but in her stare he sees her steeling herself to watch someone else walk away. He knows she’s done that since she was seven. He promised her she’d never have to again.

When he tears his eyes away, Oliver moves to grab the go-bag that’s stashed in the downstairs closet, hearing the keys to his father’s Porsche jingle in the side pocket. They went around the world, the two of them together, and somehow, ended up right back where they started, stuck between her desire to love him, and his inability to make that possible.

He should have known, that it would be the secrecy, and not the secret, that ripped her away from him. Hindsight, and all that.

“I just need some space.” It’s like Felicity’s trying to assure him even as her voice wavers slightly, but as he slips his mother’s diamond into his pocket and heads for the door, he doesn’t know why. 

“I understand.” He follows a lie with one of the only truths he’s certain of in this world, needing her to hear it before he leaves, meeting her eyes so she’ll know it for sure. “I just need _you_.”


End file.
